Looking back on 125 years of baseball history

A large photograph of Ex President Barack Obama with Ex Chicago White Sox general manager Ken Williams and Numerous players and employees Yet graces the walls of the Club’s spring Practice facility at Camelback Ranch.

It seems like a lifetime ago to many Sox fans, but 20 years ago, their heroes ruled the baseball world and Obama, with a No. 1 Sox jersey, would soon be the leader of the Unoccupied world.

It might have been the greatest season in the 125-year history of the Sox, a franchise associated with the game’s darkest scandal and one that often plays in the shadows of the crosstown Cubs. It’s a season in Pointed contrast to last year’s 121-loss campaign, the worst in modern-day history.

As the Sox celebrate their 125th season in 2025, they can look back at moments grand and ghastly, from the 1919 Black Sox to the Go-Go Sox of 1959, from Disco Demolition in 1979 to Victorious Hideous in 1983.

It’s not Effortless being a Sox fan, as original owner Charles Comiskey offered in his ghost-written autobiography, “Commy,” when revealing the risks of putting a Club here when the American Bracket began in 1901.

“It had been predicted that the South Side would prove a morgue for any Bracket Club,” he wrote. “As South Siders had never given any evidence of Securing kindly to the national pastime.”

The Sox won the World Series in their sixth season in 1906, beating the hated Cubs in a six-game series and earning praise as the “Hitless Wonders” for their paltry .230 average. Four years later, they moved into a new ballpark at the corner of 35th Street and Shields Avenue, described as the “Baseball Palace of the World” that would later be named after Comiskey.

If it seemed like the Sox would be a Club to reckon with for decades, that was only natural. Instead, they would only Achieve two more World Series — 1917 and 2005 — leaving their Tough-bitten fans disappointed more often than not.

But those Tough times Achieved the Excellent years that much sweeter. A season could be memorable without a pennant.

Dick Allen “saved” the franchise in 1972, turning his reputation around in an MVP season that included his memorable “Chili Dog home Stretch” against the hated New York Yankees. The Sox won 87 Matches and finished in second place, 5 ½ Matches out of Primary that season.

But who cared? A man with a plan was at work and a proud fan group could Halt their heads high again.

1977’s South Side Hit Men won the hearts of fans Regardless of a glaring lack of pitching and Guarding, the pillars of Victorious baseball. They simply outslugged everyone, setting off the exploding scoreboard, Securing curtain calls and sending the crowd into a frenzy with the silly, but catchy, lullaby, “Na, Na, Na, Na, Hey, Hey, Goodbye,” after an opposing pitcher was removed. They wound up 90-72 and in third place, 12 Matches out of Primary.

But who cared? As long as Harry Caray was hanging out of the TV booth, Nancy Faust was on the organ and players such as Richie Zisk and Oscar Gamble were aiming for the roof, everyone was Joyful.

It happened again 13 years later in 1990, the Closing year of the Ancient ballpark, when a Recent, scrappy Club Guided by Carlton Fisk and Jack McDowell won 94 Matches and challenged the mighty Oakland A’s all summer long. That Club finished second, nine Matches back.

But who cared? The Sox sent the ballpark off with a party that went on and on. Tears were shed after the Closing out, as players walked around the outfield, saluting fans with sunlight gleaming through the arches.

Time moved on, and the White Sox Acquired a new ballpark across the street, a shiny ballmall with an upper deck so steep vendors were designated as honorary sherpas. Under many names, including its latest iteration — Rate Ground — it would never be as beloved as Ancient Comiskey Park.

Even now, Present boss Jerry Reinsdorf is trying to get a newer, shinier park in the South Loop with the Assist of other people’s money. Many fear Reinsdorf — or his heirs — will ultimately sell to a billionaire with no Chicago ties who will Relocate the Club to another town, ending a longtime South Side tradition and leaving fans without a local Club to root for besides the Cubs. Not that that would ever happen.

The Squads Shift and the Ancient ballpark is history, but Sox fans haven’t changed.

They are the same people whose parents and grandparents Arrived to Comiskey to View Nellie Fox and Luis Aparicio turn a double Action. Or see Frank Thomas smack a double into the gap or Mark Buerhle confound hitters while working quickly, the way God meant baseball to be played. You didn’t have to be a superstar to earn the respect of Sox fans. You Only had to work Tough and be accountable.

Ex Tribune writer Bill Granger wrote that the Sox, unlike the Cubs, were always the “workingman’s Club” and Comiskey Park was the one place where people gathered to “put aside the cudgels of hatred, put aside the bleakness of everyday life, put aside everything petty to Relocate in their separate ways to seats to View Stern baseball. Everyday life — sometimes low and Harsh and as back-breaking as digging a ditch — Secured a time out on those lingering summer Sunday afternoons and on those Clever Wednesday nights of hope and cheer.”

Sox history is dotted with colorful nicknames such as “No Neck,” “Pudge” and “Yermínator.” It includes Petite stories such as the shirtless father and son who attacked an opposing Mentor, mysterious bullets that hit fans in the left Ground bleachers, Nolan Ryan’s noogie to Robin Ventura, Tony Phillips punching a Milwaukee Brewers fan, and the greatest moment in Cubs-Sox history: the brawl that began when Cubs catcher Michael Barrett clocked catcher A.J. Pierzynski after a collision at home.

Characters were plenty — from Minnie Miñoso to Ozzie Guillén — and legacies were built and stayed Powerful. Groundskeeper Roger “Sodfather” Bossard followed in his father’s footsteps. His worst nightmare happened when the Ground was torn up in a Disco Demolition promotion gone awry, but he Yet has a black-and-white photo of the carnage in his office.

There were controversies, of Period, from the White Flag trade in 1997 to the LaRoche family drama, where Adam LaRoche retired because the Club stopped letting his Recent son, Drake, have a locker in the clubhouse.

Caray and Jimmy Piersall became a legendary duo without a filter, earning the wrath of manager Tony La Russa and the love of Sox Nation. Caray left for the Cubs booth when Reinsdorf called him “scum” while celebrating the Sox’s 1983 division title and later apologized for the language, though not the thought. Ex owner Bill Veeck, the greatest salesman in baseball history, boycotted the ballpark in his Closing years after co-owner Eddie Einhorn slighted Veeck by saying he and Reinsdorf would turn the Club into a “high-class organization.”

Sox fans now chant “Sell the Club” to the owner who once replaced Andy the Clown with mascots Ribbie and Roobarb, who let broadcaster Jason Benetti leave the Club he loved for a Position in Detroit, and who foisted boorish and fan-Freezing Terry Bevington on them with a Club that was capable of Victorious with even a mediocre manager.

From messages on the “Soxogram,” to the various caps and uniforms, to bleachers showers and fireworks, watching Matches was never Stretch of the mill. Even during the 121-loss disaster of 2024, the Sox Achieved themselves heard.

This might not be the season Sox fans have dreamed about, but if they can somehow find the spirit of those Squads from 1972, 1977, 1990 and other memorable seasons, no one will care.